Many businesses and organizations rely on internet advertisements that include phone numbers to attract customers. An increasing number of these advertisements are viewed on mobile phones as consumers find it increasingly convenient to find products or services using their mobile devices. To locate products or services, potential customers typically use keyword searches on search engines. In addition to search results, most search engines display several advertisements that are relevant to the searched keywords. The advertisements may be displayed with or without phone numbers.
Businesses pay online advertising networks (e.g., ADWORDS by GOOGLE, Yahoo Search Marketing by YAHOO!) for the placement of advertisements next to search results or on other websites based on keywords. For example, NIKE may bid on the keywords “basketball” and “shoes” using ADWORDS, and when a customer searches for phrases containing these keywords, GOOGLE will display NIKE'S advertisement next to the search results. The placement of the advertisement typically depends on the amount bid on the keywords as compared to other companies advertising using similar keywords. In the displayed advertisement, the search provider may provide a “click-to-call” feature that allows customers to call a forwarding phone number to connect to the advertiser associated with the displayed advertisement.
Companies spend a tremendous amount of money for these mobile ads. In 2014, for example, advertisers spent more than $4 billion on mobile search ads to drive calls. However, while companies continue to spend a significant amount on advertising campaigns, companies are typically unaware of the return on investment and success of these ads. For example, there are few tools that allow advertisers to judge the ability of advertisements to drive calls to displayed telephone numbers in those advertisements. By failing to provide these tools, businesses are unable to optimize their return on investment (“ROI”) for displayed ads.
The need exists for systems and methods that overcome the above problems, as well as provide additional benefits. Other limitations of existing or prior systems will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon reading the following Detailed Description.